Riding the wind of rebirth

Zhou Zhi had always been secretly worried that Wei Yi was engaged in secret intelligence work, but judging from the current situation, it seems that Wei Yi has extricated himself from his previous work.

Of course, there is another possibility, which is that it is more concealed and more sophisticated.

But at least he has become more integrated into London society. In any case, Wei Yi now has a certain influence in certain areas of both countries, which is quite an achievement.

“This is better than working at a newspaper,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “Newspapers are too sensitive, so this is better. It allows me to contribute to domestic enterprises while fully realizing my personal value. What research area are you doing over there, my sworn brother?”

“The direction is philosophical anthropology,” the godfather replied.

"What kind of knowledge is this?"

“We didn’t know before,” the godmother said. “We only looked it up after your sworn brother told us. It seems to be a field of study proposed by a German philosopher. It mainly studies the origin, state of existence, essence, laws of development of mankind, as well as the overall issues of the relationship between mankind and nature, history, and religion. We didn’t ask for more specific directions.”

"So, will my sworn brother have to go to places like Africa and the Amazon in the future?"

"I think you mentioned a place, somewhere by a big lake in Africa. How did you know that?" My godmother was a little surprised.

“It’s all deduction. These are the places in the world where the human population still has the closest resemblance to its original form, aren’t they?” Zhou Zhi nodded. “Now is probably the last chance to study this subject. In another twenty years, these samples will probably be ‘contaminated’ by ubiquitous communication and the convenient information explosion.”

“What I’m more worried about is what he’ll be able to do when he comes back,” the godfather said, frowning. “The country is developing rapidly, and he’s going to study human origins? In philosophy, no less.”

“We don’t need to worry about these things that we don’t understand for our sworn brother,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “Things that are beyond our comprehension are not for us to worry about. They might even be highly sought after at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I’m just guessing. Human social governance and ideological transformation are inseparable from this kind of knowledge, so it will be of great use all over the world.”

“That’s true.” The godparents were both easygoing people, and after Zhou Zhi said that, they felt less upset.

After drinking a round of beer and chatting about relatives far away, the conversation eventually returned to the present.

Zhouzhi has a very good understanding of the surface cultural relics in Manzhou City. The Manzhou area is an important area for stone and brick tombs from the Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty. Therefore, they are scattered in five counties and have a large number of exquisite tomb stone carvings and tomb figurines, many of which have extremely high cultural relic value.

For example, when Zhou Zhi cooperated with his godfather to conduct a cultural relics survey in the county, the important cultural relics discovered included the Jianyuan Tomb Stone, the Western Han Dynasty Tomb Stone Carving of Fuxi and Nuwa Intertwining, and the Eastern Han Dynasty Kissing Pottery Figurines, all of which have now been designated as first-class cultural relics.

As far as he knew, other counties also had many important cultural relics, such as the Longnao Bridge in Luxian County, the Song Dynasty tombs, and the Chunqiu Temple in Xuyong County.

In addition, there are countless stone coffins with portraits in the cultural centers of various counties. These Song Dynasty stone carvings are often exquisitely carved and have sacred meanings. They have very rich research value in terms of culture, religion, astronomy, history, and even clothing and daily life.

If these items were selected and arranged into a full-floor exhibition hall, aside from being a bit eerie, the significance of displaying them to the public would be very important. Moreover, the subject matter is very unique, belonging to a style that is unique in the whole country, which would undoubtedly help to enhance the status of the museum.

However, Zhou Zhi was unfamiliar with the existing collection. So his godfather pulled out a picture book from the bookshelf and began to introduce it to Zhou Zhi in great detail, explaining that the collection of the Manzhou Museum was roughly divided into four categories.

The first category is calligraphy and painting. The paintings include works by famous artists such as Wen Zhengming, Xu Wei, Zuo Xijia, and Zeng Guofan, but there are more works by modern and contemporary calligraphers and painters such as Xu Beihong and Zhang Daqian. Among them, the works of local artist Jiang Zhaohe from Manzhou are the most numerous, totaling more than 30 pieces, covering oil paintings, sculptures, ink paintings of figures, etc.

The calligraphy works include those of Cao Xiuxian and his son, Zhang Ying and his son, and the four Qing dynasty families, including Weng Fanggang and Prince Cheng. Liu Yong's calligraphy was given to his godfather by Zhou Zhi and has now been donated by his godfather to the museum's collection.

The second category is stone carvings, which mainly come from Han Dynasty pictorial coffins, Song Dynasty tomb stone carvings, as well as Ming Dynasty stone bridges and Qing Dynasty archways. This category is extremely rich and could easily fill an entire floor. It will definitely become an important category of the Manzhou Museum in the future.

The third category is wine vessels. Manzhou Jiangyang has been a famous wine-making area since the Tang and Song dynasties. There are a great variety of utensils for making, storing, transporting and drinking wine, which perfectly show the clear lineage of Manzhou's "wine culture".

Among the most important artifacts are a complete set of thirty-two ivory carvings depicting characters from "Dream of the Red Chamber" playing drinking games; a Qing Dynasty Taibai porcelain wine vessel with auspicious deer design engraved in cowpea red lines; and a uniquely shaped bronze wine warmer with a qilin design, never before seen in Zhouzhi.

“The first two items look very familiar to me. These are Grandpa Yu’s treasures.” Zhou Zhi pointed to the wine tokens in the album and laughed, “I played with this set of ivory tokens at Grandpa Yu’s house when I was a child. There’s no mistake.”

“Yes, Mr. Yu’s contribution to our collection of wine vessels is outstanding.” My godfather said with admiration: “In the last five years, the number of wine vessels in our collection has increased by more than a thousand, accounting for two-thirds of the entire collection. They were basically all donated by your Uncle Yu.”

"My goodness... the old man is amazing." Zhou Zhi couldn't help but exclaim, "He's so good at this, he's created a whole new category for himself, he's definitely a master."

"This story wouldn't have been possible without Xiao Liu's support. Xiao Liu is a permanent independent director of Laojiao. Old Master Yu felt that the furnishings in her office were too tacky, so he started collecting antiques related to wine to replace them for her." The godmother laughed, "That's how your Uncle Yu's wine collection started. Xiao Liu felt that the old man had a good hobby, so of course she should support him. And since she had plenty of money, she quickly collected a whole category."

"In order to please his father-in-law, Zhu Dazhang even took photos of those wine vessels and published a picture album. The pictures used in our album are all taken from this album."

When Zhou Zhi saw the cover of the album, he saw the unique Qilin wine warmer with four characters in running script on it: "Jiangfeng Jiuyun". He laughed again: "The inscription is by my fourth cousin. He must have appraised this wine warmer too?"

Flipping through the catalog, it was indeed in the style of my fourth cousin's inscription. In fact, the decorative style of this bronze wine vessel is quite obvious; it is from the Ming Dynasty, but the shape is just too unique.

The object is shaped like a Qilin (a mythical creature), with patterns decorating its head and abdomen. The abdomen is hollow, allowing charcoal to be placed inside, and there is a channel at the bottom for collecting ash.

The Qilin carries a wine vat symmetrically on each side of its body. Both the wine vat and the Qilin's body have a double-layered structure that can hold water.

When using it, charcoal is placed in the belly of the Qilin, and water is poured into the interlayer and the wine vat. After the water in the interlayer boils, it will transfer the water temperature to the water in the wine vat, and then the water in the wine vat will transfer the temperature to the porcelain wine bottle placed in the wine vat, so as to achieve the purpose of even heating.

The water in the interlayer boils and produces steam, which is then expelled through the Qilin's two nostrils, creating an atmosphere of "divine beast descending to earth," a truly ingenious design.

This item is a genuine national first-class cultural relic, and the old man donated it along with thousands of other items without hesitation. (End of Chapter)